


Pants and Pronouns

by Kariachi



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alternate Canon, Friendship, Gen, because ignoring bits of omniverse, damnit somebody needed to explore how alien aliens can be in this series, i have picked up the torch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 12:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariachi/pseuds/Kariachi
Summary: While hanging out with Kevin, Gwen finds herself receiving a quick lesson in Osmosian biology.





	Pants and Pronouns

Gwen was happy with the level of trust and intimacy between herself and Kevin. Part of her was still sad they weren’t dating- he’d eventually pulled her aside and told her that he had noticed her longing looks as well, and that part of why he wasn’t making a move was because he did not and would not want her or anybody the way she clearly wanted him; she’d appreciated that, it was a hill to die on for her and allowed them to move on as friends despite otherwise mutual attraction- but this easy friendship was enough. If nothing else, it meant she had someone besides Emily that she could trust to tell her when an outfit looked awful.

It also helped in getting to see him naked, which she was finally getting to do now that she’d gotten him to agree to come over and try on some clothes she’d found for him. Ones that hadn’t been patched back together a million and a half times. He hadn’t even asked about changing in the bathroom, or a spare room, or even for her to turn her back while he did, which she saw as a major boon. After all, it wasn’t like he didn’t know her feelings towards him and if he was willing to let her have an eyeful, well, she certainly wasn’t going to say no. And what a view it was, all muscle and scars and tattoos, the perfect, well-built bad boy. But there was something she’d noticed during the transition to the first outfit. Gwen didn’t take issue, and didn’t want to risk upsetting her dear friend, but now, three outfits in, she really couldn’t help herself.

“Kevin,” she asked as he pulled on a deep blue t-shirt, still bare from the waist down-and she really did appreciate him going commando today- chewing at her lip and trying to find the right words for what she wanted to say, “I don’t mean to offend or anything, and I get if you don’t wanna talk about it but, there were some… _things_ I was expecting…” Kevin looked at her, blinking, then followed her eyes down below his hips.

He snorted.

“I’m an Ossy,” he said, with an ease like that was supposed to answer any questions.

“I know _that_ ,” Gwen responded. She didn’t mind if he was trans or queer or anything but an actual answer would have been nice. “I want to know if there’s anything here I should be aware of or-” Smirking gently, Kevin shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Osmosians work different from humans,” he said, looking over the pants available to him with an appraising eye, “I mean, we don’t have the whole sex, sexes, hump ‘em and go thing you sexual species have.” Gwen’s head tilted to one side, she was intrigued now.

“Meaning, what? Are you like those whiptail lizards that are all female or…?”

“No.” One word, but spoken with finality. “‘Female’ sorta implies there’s males or there were males, we don’t have that.” He grabbed a pair of black jeans to go with the shirt and slipped into them. “We don’t have sexes at all. We make eggs, all of us, but that doesn’t make us chicks.” 

“Huh.” Gwen leaned back on her bed, watching him try and fail to do up the pants- too small around the waist. It made sense, she guessed. A species that only had the one sex probably wouldn’t consider it to be something worth categorizing, and people trying to force a label on it based on their own sexes probably wouldn’t be welcome. “So, are you parthenogenic then?”

“Am I what?” Kevin looked up from choosing another pair of pants to give her his most confused look. She had to chuckle.

“Do you just birth clones of yourselves?”

“Oh.” He shook his head and turned back to the clothes. “No, we use our powers.” Curiosity must have been rolling off her or something, because despite not looking up again he chuckled and raised a hand demonstrably. “I absorb DNA too, remember? Well that shit gets stored away. Someday, when I’m not dealing with so many stressful situations and I have more than enough food to go around, it’ll mix with my own DNA and I’ll lay a bunch of little hybrid babies.” 

“Cool.” Gwen nodded, storing that information away for future use. She could be prepared ahead of time for any baby shower needs. Still, that left the thing she’d been curious about in the first place, a worry that was going to niggle at her if she didn’t address it.

“Kev?” she asked again, waiting until he’d gotten the button on a pair of faded stonewash jeans done up and given her his attention before continuing. “Are you okay with me calling you ‘he’? If you don’t want me to…” Kevin’s eyes widened slightly, as if nobody had asked him that in at least a good while. He was quiet for a moment, looking through her contemplatively, before he answered.

“The proper pronoun is ‘ru’ or ‘ryl’ if you want to use it,” ru said, smiling at her. Ru looked almost choked up. “But I don’t mind ‘he’ at all, you haven’t been offending me or anything.” Gwen smiled back and filed this away too. For a second she considered hugging ryl, if just to make sure the message of ‘you are my friend and I want you to be comfortable and happy’ got through, but she settled for handing ryl a different shirt, this one with a set of gears on it. She was sure her grin and future actions would carry the message enough without invading ryl space.

“Good to know.”


End file.
